Folklore Without Borders

[This is an AHRC Network grant led by Dr Matt Cheeseman at Derby University, and with Dr Paul Cowdell, a VRF at UH, as Co-I. If awarded, Paul will be the UH PI. Owen Davies is listed as internal PI for purely admin reasons and will not be involved in the project.]
Folklore Without Borders is a network of academics and organisations working to develop greater diversity within folklore. We are holding an international knowledge exchange on folklore theory, methodology and creative practice. The network is focused on the UK, with participants from Estonia, Norway and the United States (US). It connects three groups who work with cultural tradition: academia (research, teaching, impact), individual stakeholders (artists, writers; entrepreneurial folklorists) and cultural industries (museums, galleries, archives; media). This network considers both theoretical and practical to make change happen in a number of domains that would not normally have the opportunity to meet.
All of our participants recognise diversity issues in folklore. Some are systemic to Higher Education (HE), creative arts practice and entrepreneurship in the UK (the erasure or under-representation of the minoritized; whether racially, disabled, LGBTQ+, female, particularly at senior career stage), some are specific to the discipline (such as advocacy, representation and agency within folklore research), and some take heightened form in the UK, where interest and involvement in folklore is overwhelmingly white, with an absence of disability, urban, working class voices, diverse genders, races and sexualities.